METHOD FOR REMOTELY CONFIGURING USER INTERFACES FOR PORTABLE DEVICES

• US 20080276182A1
• Filed: 05/05/2008
• Published: 11/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ZiiLabs Inc., Ltd. (Creative Technology Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: 3DLabs Incorporated Limited (Creative Technology Ltd.)
• Inventors: LEOW, Chon Hock
• Application Number:
  US12/115,509
• Publication Number:
  US 20080276182A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/740
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72406 by software upgrading or downloading
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72427 for supporting games or graphical animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/185 by embedding added-value information into content, e.g. geo-tagging
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring

Abstract

A method of configuring the user interface of a portable electronic device is provided. A user designed user interface is created using authoring tools at a remote server and stored. A remote server file is accessed that stores a user designed user interface. The customized interface is selected and downloaded to the device.

Claims

1. A method of configuring the user interface of a portable electronic device, the method comprising;

accessing a remote server file that provides interactive instructions for the design of a portable device user interface;

customizing the design of the user interface using the interactive instructions;

assigning the customized design to a user interface template; and

storing the user interface template at the remote server.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein customizing the design of the user interface comprises selecting at least one icon and selecting the appearance position in a hierarchy of display screens

3. The method as recited in claim 2 further comprising providing a communications link between the portable device and the remote server and downloading the user interface template to the portable device, wherein after downloading the portable device user interface is configured in conformance with the customized design corresponding to the selected user interface template.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing of the remote server file comprises using a PC to access tools available on the web.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the portable device is one of a PDA, handheld media device, and mobile phone.

6. The method as recited in claim 3 wherein the communications link includes at least one of Wifi, Wimax, USB, and WAN links.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the portable device is configured to automatically connect to a predefined URL corresponding to the remote server.

8. The method as recited in claim 7 wherein access to the user interface template is controlled using a unique ID assigned to one of the user the user and the portable device.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the customizing includes selecting the short cuts that appear in a first menu display screen, the number of display screens presented sequentially after the first, and the content of the display screens of the user interface.

10. The method as recited in claim 9 wherein the shortcuts are represented by one of text and icons.

11. A method of configuring the user interface of a portable electronic device, the method comprising;

using the portable device to communicate with a remote server that contains at least one user interface template previously customized for a unique portable electronic device;

selecting at least one of the at least one user interface templates; and

downloading the selected user interface template to the portable device, wherein after downloading the portable device user interface is configured in conformance with the customized design corresponding to the selected user interface template.

12. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein the remote server is accessed over the internet.

13. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein selecting the user interface template is performed automatically based on location information provided by the portable device.

14. The method as recited in claim 11 wherein location dependant data associated with a selected user interface template is used to update the user interface displayed items in conjunction with a location of the portable device.

15. The method as recited in claim 14 wherein the display of data associated with the portable device user interface is filtered by at least one of time value and a geographic location value.

16. The method as recited in claim 15 wherein the portable device is configured to automatically provide at least one of the time value and a geographic location value to control the user interface configuration.

17. A portable electronic device comprising;

a transceiver module configured to communicate with a remote server that contains at least one user interface template previously customized for the portable electronic device; and

a processor configured to select at least one of the at least one user interface templates and to download the selected user interface template to the portable device, wherein after downloading the portable device user interface is configured in conformance with the customized design corresponding to the selected user interface template.